Blog Features

Bel Folks Stuff – Episode 8 – Featuring Grace

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Good Morning Friends. Earlier this week I released the last of the original Bel Folks Stuff episodes again since the entire project predated me actually putting things on YouTube. The nasty secret however is that in January of 2020 I started the process of recording brand new episodes of the show. This has always been a little bit of a passion project for me and I enjoy these way more than probably the people listening to them. I want to do more of them and I thought initially by re-releasing all of the episodes it would kick start me back into scheduling recording dates and such and making it happen. I had two shows recorded that I have been sitting on for almost two years at this point and now feel like it is time to actually let the world listen to them.

The pandemic wrecked a lot of us creatively, so it is a bit weird to be listening to this show knowing it was recorded well before most of us had to deal with lock downs, toilet paper shortages, or the fear of leaving the house. It is really hard to have “best friends” as adults, or at least it is something that I have struggled with personally… but if I were to try and sort out that thing Grace would absolutely be at the top of that list. In part I started this initiative up again with their show in part because I knew it would be relaxing and easy for me to get through. In truth all of these first episodes are me sitting down with various folks that I record AggroChat with so it would be low pressure. I was battling social anxiety pretty freaking hard when this all started and only recently have pulled myself out of that cycle.

I hope you enjoy listening to the show anywhere near as much as I enjoyed recording it. So without further rambling I present you Bel Folks Stuff featuring my amazing friend Grace.

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Bel Folks Stuff – Episode 7 – Featuring Jaedia

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A Discussion with Jaedia

Hey Friends! This morning I woke up and realize that I had committed a travesty and am trying to right that wrong. Almost two years ago I had this grand idea of rebooting Bel Folks Stuff… and had even recorded a few new episodes as part of the process. I had this entire plan of re-releasing all of the original content since it never existed on YouTube and then this giving me a ramp to start recording new content. Then like everything that happened early in 2020, it was derailed by the pandemic. I mean on one hand being stuck at home should have been the opportune time to record something like podcast episodes with so much of the populace now working from home. Instead I personally found that the pandemic and the constant fear of death… pretty much sapped whatever creativity I had in me and left me this hollow shell.

The end result is that I never actually got around to re-releasing the episode featuring my good friend Jaedia, and since today is her birthday I thought I would fix that today. Her blog Dragons and Whimsy is now on its third revision and quite honestly there are so damned many accolades I could throw out here. Many of you specifically may know her from her work that she did on MMOGames.com from 2015 through 2018. I would provide links to profiles, but it is grossly incomplete because the site seems to have a habit of replacing “by lines” and several articles I know she wrote now show up as someone else. I may or may not have pent up bitterness about my brief time writing for the site as well.

Not at all where I intended to go with this discussion, but here we are nonetheless! This episode was recorded in May of 2015, so an awful lot of things have changed in those six years. The discussion that was had though is just as relevant today as it was when it was first recorded. I hope you can enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoy revisiting it in my memories. Here is hoping that this will also act as a catalyst for me actually releasing some of the episodes that I have recorded already as well of the new rendition.

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Mixtape Mondays: Melancholeidoscope

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Good Morning Friends! It is time once more for me to present you with a blend of music for the week ahead. For those who might be new to my blog, every Monday for the past several months I have been presenting you with a new Mixtape. Sure it is actually just a YouTube or Spotify playlist, but I assembled it in the loving manner that I used to assemble custom mixtapes for my friends. I am uncertain how long inspiration will keep this section of the blog alive, but it has done so for twenty posts thus far.

Melancholeidoscope

Lately, I have been struggling a bit with melancholy, but it isn’t like it has just been one unified feeling but more a kaleidoscope of feelings. So there you go… this one is a portmanteau of those two words. Sometimes you listen to down songs because you are down… but also you are not looking to be cheered up and are fine with staying down. This journey all started when I heard something on the radio that I had not heard in years… and started to piece together an album around that song… and then proceeded to edit it out of the mix in the first place. It is funny how the creative process works sometimes, and your original inspiration is chucked aside for something new. Essentially this album is a mixture of some of my favorite melancholy songs. Some have hope for better days, and some just wallow in that feeling and that is okay. Sometimes we have to be down, but it helps to have friends along for the journey. A song can be like an old familiar friend that you have not visited in a really long time, and it similarly is amazing how many emotions come rushing back as soon as you open that door.

Track List

  • Everybody’s Changing – Keane
  • Iris – The Goo Goo Dolls
  • A Long December – Counting Crows
  • Romeo And Juliet – The Killers
  • Someday? – Concrete Blonde
  • One – U2
  • You Don’t Know How It Feels – Tom Petty
  • Walking After You – Foo Fighters
  • Runaway Train – Soul Asylum
  • Yellow Ledbetter – Pearl Jam
  • Patience – Guns N’ Roses
  • High and Dry – Radiohead
  • Brass in Pocket – Pretenders

Listen On Spotify

Listen On YouTube

Listen On Tidal

And that friend is my twentieth mix, and I gotta be honest I was not sure this series would have lasted this long. I am not sure how many more of these I have in me, but I am going to keep creating when the inspiration strikes me. Sometimes an album builds itself. For this one each time I thought of a song to add, listening to it would make me think of another song and then I simply had to cull what no longer worked. I think at one point I had almost thirty songs on the list and whittled it down to the blend that I present today. As always if you are tuning into this series late and wanting to catch up you can check out the archive below.

Mixtape Mondays: Mason and Librarian

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Good Morning Friends! I apologize for missing a Mixtape Monday last week, but I was fully in holiday mode and not caring about the world one little bit. For anyone who might be new to my blog, every Monday I post a playlist full of songs that have been lovingly crafted like one would have done with a precious blank cassette tape. I think that was part of what made Mixtapes in general so carefully crafted because, to be honest… a pack of high-quality blank cassettes was freaking expensive. Like legitimately a pack of three quality tapes was about half the price of an album… which is fine but nothing that you felt like you could squander. Anyways… nostalgia trip finished because today I craft my mixes for you in modern formats like Spotify and YouTube playlists.

Mason and Librarian

Often times the mixes I share with you have a clear theme to them… and I have to be honest this is probably not going to be one of those. There is a theme, but it is a deeply personal theme that won’t actually relate to anyone outside of my own skull case. In late high school I had two wildly different friends that lived a few houses down from each other, and as one drifted further down paths that I did not want to follow… I ended up clinging to the other. The day I crafted this mix, I was thinking about the wild juxtaposition of these two friends because really at their core they could not be more different. One grew up to follow in his father’s footsteps and became a Stone Mason, and the other followed his childhood passions and become a Librarian. I don’t really have much connection anymore to the first one, but talk at least weekly to the second one and chances are he will actually see this mix at some point when he catches up on my blog. Like it won’t make much sense, but this is an album that reminds me of the two of them more than actually relates to them.

Track List

  • True Nature – Jane’s Addiction
  • Freak Scene – Dinosaur Jr.
  • Violet – Hole
  • Misery – Soul Asylum
  • Welcome to the Fold – Filter
  • Nothing – Stabbing Westward
  • Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart – Stone Temple Pilots
  • Sabotage – Beastie Boys
  • Points of Authority – Linkin Park
  • When Worlds Collide – Powerman 5000
  • Space Lord – Monster Magnet
  • Lay Lady Lay – Ministry
  • Pets – Porno for Pyros

Listen on Spotify

Listen On YouTube

Listen On Tidal

With that, we close the nineteenth chapter in this Mixtape Monday series. This is one of my favorite ones to listen to because the same thoughts that lead me to choose this specific lineup are sort of now imbued in the final product, and listening makes me think about these two friends. I have a wealth of close acquaintances, but I have very few really close friends in the world that I have let down my armor in order to see me behind this facade. I am thankful some years back I reconnected with the Librarian, who is awesomely moving to my town and hopefully once the pandemic is a bit less scary we can do some real world shenanigans again. As always I hope you enjoyed this Mixtape and if you are new to the series you can find the entire series run over at the archives below.